2015-08 Maine High Adventure

Maine High Adventure Trip

Trip Overview:

• 7 Senior Scouts
• 2 Adult Leaders
• 9 Days total

Trip Itinerary:

• Drive to Mt. Chase Lodge in Patten, ME.  Overnight in the lodge.
• Matagamon Basecamp for gear shakedown and assessment. Camp overnight.
• Paddle Indian Pond Stream to Eagle Lake. Camp overnight.
• Paddle across Eagle Lake to Chamberlain Lake on to Telos Lake. Camp overnight.
• Paddle Telos Lake and portage on to Webster Lake. Camp overnight
• Paddle Webster Brook and portage around the waterfall.  Camp overnight.
• Paddle Second Grand Lake back into Matagamon Basecamp. Camp overnight.
• Drive home.

Day One (Sunday) – Mt. Chase Lodge

En route to Mt. Chase Lodge, we made a quick pit stop in Bangor, ME to visit Stephen King's home.

Overnight at Mt. Chase lodge with other troops heading out to Maine High Adventure the following day. 

Day Two (Monday) – Matagamon Basecamp / Gear Shakedown / Trip Planning

Daytime Conditions:       Sun and Wind

Overnight Conditions:    Rain/Thunderstorm and Wind

The day consisted of gear shakedown, trip planning and gear/meal provisioning as well as swimming/rescue tests. The Crew Leader worked with the Trip Guide (Bryan) on provisioning and trip planning.  The crew met with the trip planner to decide on an itinerary.

Dinner was trail food at base camp the first night just to get an idea of what/how we would be eating. 

 

Day Three (Tuesday) – Canoeing, Driving and More Canoeing

Daytime Conditions:       Overcast with sprinkles.

Overnight Conditions:    Overcast with sprinkles.

We packed our gear and paddled across the First Great Lake back to the public access dock. We secured the canoes and all the gear and piled into the van for a 4 hour drive to the put in, located in a small stream between Indian Pond and Eagle Lake just NW of Baxter State Park.

We paddled the stream out to Eagle Lake, enjoying a couple pounds of cattail shoots at the edge of the lake. We then paddled into Pillsbury Island campsite for our first night.

Day Four (Wednesday) – Flatwater Canoeing, Logging Trains and our First Portage

Daytime Conditions:       Partly cloudy

Overnight Conditions:    Partly cloudy

We paddled up Eagle Lake and saw Moose, Eagles and Loones. We spent 45 minutes at the abandoned logging locomotives before hoofing our gear the .5 miles over to Chamberlain Lake. The portage was two stages: gear first and and then the canoes. We paddled down Chamberlain Lake for a mile or so before breaking for lunch and deciding to try to sail the canoes as the wind was picking up.

We attached the dining fly to two poles and stood the poles in the bow of the outside canoes secured by the bow men with guidelines secured to paddles controlled by the stern men.  The crew on the inside three canoes were holding the gunnels to keep the canoes together.  The stern man in the middle boat was using his paddle as a rudder. We sailed much of Chamberlain Lake, then paddled, then sailed much of Telos Lake.

We took out at Boy Scout campsite at the end of the first part of Telos Lake (just before the Chamberlain Bridge) and setup for the night.

 

Day Five (Thursday) – Flatwater Canoeing, Whitewater Canoeing and our Second Portage

Daytime Conditions:       Partly cloudy

Overnight Conditions:    Clear

We started the day early and headed down the remainder of Telos Lake.  We then entered a small connector stream joining Telos and Webster Lakes and pulled out about 100 yards ahead of a small dam.  We then portaged the gear and boats approximately 0.5 miles around the dam. The stream was approximately 0.75 miles of whitewater with Class 1 and Class 2 rapids followed by 1 mile or so of calm water and another 0.5 miles of Class 1 and Class 2 rapids before opening up on to Webster Lake.

Once on Webster Lake, we ran into the local ranger who informed us he had just opened the dam up “a bit” as the previous couple days of rain had swollen the lakes.  He stated we were going to have a “good run” on Webster Brook.

We camped at the opening of Webster Brook in the Outtake Campsite.  A couple of the boys surprised us by popping out pool floaties!  Shamu the Whale joined us for the rest of the trip and actually made it over some of the Class 3 rapids on Day Six that we could not!  All was done with the approval of our Trip Guide.

We camped under a beautiful night sky full of shooting stars and satellites.  The boys hung out by the fire and checked out stars for an hour or so before heading off to bed.

Day Six (Friday) – Whitewater Canoeing on Webster Brook

Daytime Conditions:       Sunny

Overnight Conditions:    Clear

We started our day with a slew of Class 2 rapids and stopped to scout the first, more technical Class 3 rapid.  Most of the guys made it through without incident.

We then continued down though several Class 1 and Class 2 rapids until we hit Indian Carry – so called as the local Indians would carry their canoes down a small trail to the south of the river as these rapids would shred their boats.  We regrouped and ran a couple more Class 2 rapids before stopping.

The normally Class 3 rapids were verging on (or above) Class 4s so we decided it would be safer to line the boats through the larger rapids.  By the time we lined the boats down the remaining rapids, it was dark and we were still 2 miles from our campsite.  We tied the boats off, grabbed our gear, donned our headlamps and hiked the Freezout Trail along the river to our campsite.

It was approximately 9:00 PM when we finally walked into camp, got a fire going and cooked up some dinner.  All-in-all, it was a pretty tough (but awesome!) 13-14 hour day.

Everyone slept hard that night at the Little East Campsite. 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Seven (Saturday) - Flatwater Canoeing on Second Grand Lake into Basecamp.

Daytime Conditions:       Partly Cloudy

Overnight Conditions:    Heavy Rain

We started the day with a HUGE breakfast – essentially cooking most of what we had left.  We packed our gear and left it at the campsite.

We hiked the 2 miles back up to the boats and ran some Class 1 and Class 2 rapids for a mile or so.  We then pulled out and portaged around a 40 foot waterfall and a couple of rapids that were not passable with the river so high.

We then cruised the flatwater portion of the river down to the campsite and loaded up our gear.

After a 6+ mile paddle across the Second Grand Lake into Matagamon Basecamp, we unloaded our gear and racked the boats.

We made our way to the parade field to sort and clean up our gear and then completed the turn-in to the Commissary.

Several of the guys took showers (thankfully)!

The Crew Leader completed his post-trip assessment and the adult advisers did the same.  Once completed, the Crew Leader and adult advisers met together with the Camp Director and the Program Director to discuss the trip.  The Crew Leader was dismissed and the adult advisers remained to settle up and have a brief discussion with the directors.

Dinner was awesome!  A “Logger’s Dinner” was picked up by a couple of the crew members from the staff dining hall.  The dinner consists of slaw, brown bread, logger’s beans and ham.

The remaining time was spent cleaning up and getting our gear set for departure in the morning.

Day Eight (Sunday) – Pontoon Boat Ride out of Matagamon Basecamp and Heading Home

After a light breakfast at the Matagamon Basecamp, we were ferried back across the lake, loaded up the gear and began heading home.  We stopped for lunch in Saco, ME and were back in town around 7:00 PM.

2015-07 White Mountains Trip

July 20 AND 21 A group of 12 Scouts and adults hiked to Greenleaf Hut for an overnight and then onto the famous Lincoln Lafayette ridge line, hiking over the summits of Lafayette, Lincoln and Little Haystack.
The trip was completed with a tough hike down the Falling Waters trail to the Bridle Path trailhead. The group lucked out with super weather as reflected in the photos.

2015-06 Summer Camp

This year we had approximately 22 scouts attend Summer Camp at JNW.  The guys earned over 75 merit badges.  In addition to merit badges, we are proud to say that we had 4 scouts advance in rank while at camp this year.  We also had a couple guys recognized for marksmanship at both the rifle and archery ranges. All merit badges and rank advancements will be awarded at the T146 Kick-Off on 8/29/15.
Big thanks to Mr. Froman, Mr. Dalton, Mr. Cronin and Mr. Hosek for taking time out to be the Adult Leaders for camp this year.  We couldn't do it with out them.
An even bigger thanks goes out to Mrs. Olmstead (AKA: Summer Camp Chief)!  Her attention to detail (and in some cases her persistence in tracking down paperwork from some families!) made check-in a breeze.  We just can't thank her enough.

2015-06 End of Year Awards Ceremony and Farmington River Canoe Run

On June 6th we held our End of Year Awards Ceremony and cookout at Winding Trails in Farmington, CT.  The day was full of frisbee playing, GaGa Ball and swimming before the ceremony.
The guys earned over 50 merit badges and received numerous awards including Outdoorsman of the Year and Scout of the Year.

We regrouped Sunday morning at the bridge on Route 4 where we met the outfitters and put in on the Farmington River for our annual 6.5 mile canoe run.  We enjoyed awesome weather and flat water all the way to the old Sycamore tree in Simsbury.  We had approximately 22 attendees for the event.

2015-05 Gettysburg Heritage Trail

We headed out from WHUMC at approximately 9:00 AM on Friday and headed to Gettysburg, PA to hike the Gettysburg Heritage Trail and visit the Gettysburg National Battlefield.
This year we were fortunate enough to be chosen in the lottery to stay at Macmillan Woods on the battlefield.
Over the course of the weekend, we visited several monuments - including the site of the Gettysburg Address and the David Wills House (where the address was finalized the night before.

 In addition to visiting the battlefield, and visitors center, we had an awesome guided tour by a battlefield historian that provided much information about not only details of the conflict and what led up to it, but some of the aftermath for the local citizenry.  We cooked several meals in camp, but did have lunch on Saturday at the visitor's center and had our obligatory dinner at the General Picket's Buffet before cutting the boys loose in town for a bit of free time.
Saturday night we enjoyed a ghost tour in town before calling it a day and heading back to camp.

 Sunday morning, we trekked around town and had a tour of the David Will's House before heading back home to West Hartford.